


Love is Patient, Love is Kind

by arihime



Series: Twin AU [9]
Category: Fire Emblem: Kakusei | Fire Emblem: Awakening
Genre: F/M, Fluff and Angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-10
Updated: 2015-12-10
Packaged: 2018-05-06 01:11:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,632
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5397305
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arihime/pseuds/arihime
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sequel to <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/4437182">Proposal</a>.</p><p>The second time Chrom proposes, Aislin says yes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Love is Patient, Love is Kind

**Author's Note:**

> For the prompt "S-Support."
> 
> This only counts as a technical sequel, because it's really the conclusion/epilogue to a longer fic that I need to finish. So I guess you could count this as a sneak peak.

Being back in the royal palace after her sojourn is odd for Aislin. She never thought of it much before, but the opulence contrasts so much with the little cabin in the woods where she grew up, enough that she starts feeling out of place just when she thought she’d gotten used to it. She considers taking a room in the Shepherd’s barracks, to have something closer to normal. And to get away from a certain Exalt. 

Chrom has kept his word, and his distance, but Aislin still sees the glances he sends her, when he thinks she isn’t looking. The pain and longing make Aislin’s heart hurt, though she is firm in her decision. She cannot be his wife. Not now, or ever.

Really, the only thing that keeps her in the palace is Narcissus. Her brother is the Royal Tactician, and needed for his plans about Ylisse’s restoration. More than that though, Narcissus wants to be by her side and Chrom’s in equal measure, and Aislin isn’t willing to make him chose between them. Not after the scare she gave him by running away the night of the ball. He’s finally happy again, after the events of the war, and Aislin wants him to stay happy, no matter what it means for her own feelings.

So she stays in the palace, and is courteous enough to Chrom whenever they do cross paths, which isn’t often. For the most part, Aislin is left to her own devices, and she spends most of her time in the archery range. Some of the soldiers have asked her to teach them how to shoot, and the task keeps her busy. The men are hopeless, though they make up for their lack of skill with persistence. They insist on continuing even through lunch, and finally Aislin calls them to a halt when the sky starts to turn orange.

“Alright, that’s all for today! We’ll meet back here tomorrow.”

They all thank her and bow, and Aislin leaves before anyone can delay her with a question. She is sweaty, and tired, and very much in need of a bath. Still, it’s a good kind of tired, one that comes with a sense of accomplishment, and her good mood carries her to her room.

The door is open when she arrives, probably her maid come to clean up.

“Melly, can you draw a bath for me please?” Aislin calls, then stops.

The person inside her room isn’t Melly.

Chrom startles at her voice, turning to her with wide eyes. He’s standing near the bedside table.

“Ummm. . . Hi. I—” 

“Chrom, what are you doing here?”

“I um, wanted to see how the room was.” He stammers, tucking his hands behind his back. His cheeks are red, though Aislin doesn’t know if it’s from getting caught or something else.

“Really?”

“Yes! And well, everything is in order!” He laughs nervously. “Ummm. . . Good day.”

He runs away, dodging around her and out the door. Aislin’s hand is half raised in an attempt to stop him, but her fingers fall just short of grasping his sleeve. 

Aislin sighs and shakes her head. He said he’d keep his distant, but then he was in her room. Even if it technically is his room, since he’s the Exalt and everything in the country belong to him.

( _Everything except her._ A voice in her mind says.)

Nothing in her room looks out of place, but then, Aislin didn’t expect Chrom to take anything. He wasn’t waiting for her, either, if his expression was anything to go by. He didn’t anticipate her coming in at all.

 _So why was he here?_ Aislin thinks, pulling her quiver off and setting it by the wall. She walks into her room and flops on the bed, too tired to really put much thought into it. She thinks of asking him later, but then remembers that doing so would involve talking to him, and she’s trying to avoid doing that. It doesn’t matter.

Aislin turns on her side, trying to summon the energy to get up and go find Melly or draw up the bath herself. And then she sees something square resting calmly on the bedside table.

She sits up and reaches for the box. Chrom must have left it, since she knows it wasn’t there before. The box itself is plain, though heavy, and there’s no note with it or anything. If she hadn’t wandered in on him, she wouldn’t have known who left it.

It must be a present, but why? After everything she did to him—after she broke his heart—why would Chrom give her anything?

She’s turning that question over in her mind when she opens the box, but what she see inside makes her thoughts stop altogether. There, sitting on a bed of red fabric, is a circlet, the pattern so familiar that Aislin gasps. It’s her mother’s circlet, shiny and new and without a mark on it. But it can’t be, because her mother’s circlet broke in battle against a Risen’s blade, scattered in so many pieces in the grass that Aislin could never hope to find them all, try though she might.

Aislin runs her fingers along the smooth metal, trying to reassure herself that what she’s seeing is real.

Somehow, Chrom managed to fix her circlet.

Aislin jumps off the bed before the thought is even finished and races toward the door, the box clutched to her chest.

“Chrom!” She calls, bursting into the hallway. But of course it is empty, and Chrom is nowhere in sight.

For a moment she falters, but she steals herself and sets off after him. In spite of everything that has happened between them, he fixed her circlet. She needs to thank him. She runs through the hallways in the direction of his study, hoping to find him along the way. People give her odd looks as she passes, but Aislin ignores them, too focused on her goal. Her heart is hammering in her chest, both from elation and something else, something she doesn’t want to identify.

Finally, she turns the corner and sees him, white cap billowing behind him as he walks.

“Chrom!”

He stops immediately. “Aislin, what—” Then his gaze goes to the box in her hands, and he smiles. “I take it you liked it then?”

“Did I like it? How did you fix it? I thought it was gone! I—” She stops and catches herself, suddenly winded from running. She takes a deep breath. 

“ _Thank you,_ Chrom. I thought it’d lost it forever.”

“You shouldn’t thank me; the royal jeweler did most of the work, I just gave him the pieces. And I can’t take credit for that either; Narcissus was the one who gave me the idea.” He shrugs. “I just told the jeweler what it looked like.”

“I’ll thank Narcissus for it later, then. But you’re the one here now, so thank you. Truly. I’m so glad to have it back.”

“I am as well. It was odd, seeing you without it.” He motions to the box. “May I?”

Aislin hands it to him without a second thought. Chrom lifts the circlet from inside slowly, running his fingers over the metal in the same way Aislin had. 

“I should probably give the royal jeweler a raise; this looks just like it did before.”

“It looks better than before.” Aislin assures him.

Chrom chuckles. “If you say so.” He looks up from his inspection and meets her eye. 

“May I?” He asks again.

It takes a moment for Aislin to get his meaning. Then she nods, not trusting herself to speak.

Chrom lifts the circlet from the box and steps toward her. His hands are warm as he sets it on her forehead, drawing lines of heat on Aislin’s skin. He takes his time, adjusting the metal against her ears and brushing her hair back just so. Aislin shivers. 

It feels like an eternity before Chrom steps away. His smile is sweet and kind, his eyes dark when he says, “You look beautiful.”

“I doubt that.” Aislin says, laughing slightly. “I’m all sweaty and ragged.” A hand comes up to her hair automatically, a nervous habit. Chrom catches it easily and presses his lips against the back of it.

“You’re always beautiful to me.” He vows. The _‘because I love you’_ is him tone, and in the gentle way he holds her hand.

Aislin shakes her head and backs away, suddenly on edge. He shouldn’t be doing that. He knows he shouldn’t be doing that. And Aislin shouldn’t have let him do it, but she can’t bring herself to snatch her hand out of his grasp. 

“Chrom, I told you. . .”

“I know.” He sighs. “I _know._ I’m sorry, I just. . .” He lets go of her hand, moving until there’s a respectable distance between them. Aislin misses his warmth immediately.

“I should go.” Aislin says. Before she does something stupid. Before the want in his eyes and the sadness in his voice makes her forget why she rejected his proposal in the first place.

She turns and starts down the hallway, hand pressed against her chest. She’s almost to the end when Chrom’s voice rings out.

“Aislin, wait.”

She stills, casting a weary glance over her shoulder. The longing is gone from Chrom’s eyes, replaced with a resolve that make her shiver. It softens a bit when he says, quietly, “Wait, please.”

Chrom comes down the hallway to meet her, though he keeps his distance.

“You know, it occurs to me that I never said my piece about. . . What happened between us.”

Alarm shoots through Aislin. “Chrom. . .”

“Please, just let me speak. And if—if your reply is still the same once I’m done, I shall abide by it—no matter how painful. And come what may, we'll always be friends. That I promise. But please, listen to what I have to say.”

Just this much interaction has been too much for Aislin; she doesn’t know what she’ll do if he starts pleading his case. But she nods and turns around fully despite herself. The circlet feels heavy on her forehead, and her heart hurts.

“Alright.”

He jerks back a bit, obviously startled by her acceptance, but recovers well. He draws his shoulder back and stands to his full height, arming himself in a kingly aura. If this were any other situation, Aislin would laugh at the fact that he finds her so intimidating. As it is, she squares her own shoulders and waits for him to begin.

“I love you.” Chrom declares, and Aislin regrets her decision immediately. She has missed hearing those words.

“I love you.” He says again. “And I know you love me. But I also know that you’re scared of that fact, and of what it means for the future.”

“I—” Aislin starts, but she quickly catches herself and clamps a hand over her mouth. If she starts speaking now, she won’t stop, and that isn’t fair to Chrom. She nods for him to continue.

“All I want is to make you happy. I would gladly give up everything just to see you smile, though I doubt you’d want that of me.” He gives a mirthless chuckle. “And it’s because I want to make you happy that I’ll willingly back off if you tell me to. But until then, I need you to know that whatever happened in your past, whatever makes you think that you can’t, or that you don’t deserve to be happy, that part is wrong. You do deserve to be happy, Aislin. Be it here or anywhere else. You deserve to love, and you deserve to be in love, and you deserve to have someone love you back, and I. . .

“I’m not going to tell you to forget what happened to you, or that it doesn’t matter, because it does. All those experiences have shaped the Aislin in front of me, and made you into the woman I love. But it’s the here and now that let me fall in love with you, all of our time with the Shepherds and in the war. 

“I want to draw you out of the past, and into the present. I want to make a future with you, the woman I love. You don’t have to be afraid of your past anymore. And I promise you, if and when you decide to tell me, nothing you say will change my feelings for you. I love you.”

He reaches into his pocket and pull out a small satchel, and from there the ring tumbles out into his hand. He kept it with him, even after what happened, be it out of hope or foolishness Aislin doesn’t know.

Her heart is beating wildly in her chest, cheeks flush from Chrom’s words. It feels like hope to her, and there is hope and love and a whole other host of emotions on Chrom’s face as he says,

“So marry me, Aislin. Please. And we can build a future together.” He’s pleading now, whatever confidence he had gone in the face of emotion. “Please, I—”

“Alright.”

Aislin doesn’t realize she’s said the word until Chrom’s eyes widen. She shouldn’t have said it, shouldn’t have let her heart rule over her brain. She can’t marry him, can’t let him be tied to Grima’s blood, can’t bring down the whole Exalted line with her selfishness.

. . . But she wants to, more than anything in the world. She wants to be with him, and wake up with him, and even build a new future with him, here in Ylisse. She has spent her whole life running, looking over her shoulder, and looking after Narcissus, fearing that one day everything would come crumbling down. And when it finally did, she rebuilt and started the whole cycle over again. Here is an opportunity to break the cycle, with a man who make her feel safe and wants to make her happy.

She loves him. She loves Chrom, and she cannot keep fighting her feelings anymore.

“Yes.” Aislin says, and the word feels so right falling from her lips. “Yes, I will. I’ll marry-”

The rest of the statement is cut off when Chrom grabs her around the waist, lifts her up, and spins her. He’s laughing, and soon Aislin finds herself doing the same. 

“Gods, you’ve made me the happiest man in the realm! This is the best day of my life!” He cheers. He sets her on her feet and takes her hand, fumbling slightly with the ring as he goes to put on her finger. It fits perfectly, almost as if it was made for her.

She only gets a few moments to admire the ring before Chrom pulls her against him. There’s love in his eyes as he cups her cheek and kisses her. It’s gentle at first, but quickly dissolves into pure passion. Aislin moans; she had almost forgotten what this felt like. Suddenly there’s a wall at her back, and Chrom at her front coaxing her mouth open, and nothing else matters except this moment right now.

It feels like hours have past when they finally break apart, though Aislin know it has only been a few minutes. Chrom’s face is flush, and she knows hers is as well, both of their breathing ragged. Still, Chrom makes no move to release her, and Aislin clings to him just as hard. Her heart is pounding, full to burst with love, happiness and joy. Tears gather in her eyes, and she buries her face in Chrom’s shoulder and gives a watery laugh. 

“You are the wind at my back and the sword at my side.” Chrom whispers. “Together, my love, we shall build a peaceful world. . . Just you and me. . .”

**Author's Note:**

> You guys have no idea how hard it was to write Chrom's proposal speech. X_X I'm still not quite convinced it sounds good, but I like it a lot better now than I did when I was writing it.
> 
> Also, I can't do titles.


End file.
